PT-022 underwater case for Olympus

[yiorgos]

I am looking to buy this UW case...
unfortunately is has been discontinued and I have probelms to find it

If anyone has it and wants to sell it, please post.

thanks

[octopus]

I had the same problem with PT-015, as mine got compromised in Red sea.
I found it on eBay.
The other option is to try some shops on the net - they could perhaps still have one or two left over in the stock?
Cameras Underwater: Olympus PT022 housing for C760, C765, C770.
PT-022 Marine Case for Olympus Camedia C765/C770 (200463) Specs - DealTime.co.uk
Do you already have damaged PT-022?

[yiorgos]

thanks for the info octopus
no, this is the first time I will (hopefully) get an uw case...
are the ebay stuff reliable in general?? (ie not damaged, are they second hand, in good condition etc)??
this housing has been discontinued and the shops here in Greece have no stock. I will try the internet
regards

[octopus]

I have used eBay only this one time. Perhpas some other people could give better advice.
As far as I know, when you sell something on eBay, the person who buys item from you gives a feedback that anyone can read. So if you sold 20 items and 20 people were happy with you, you get 100% record. I would suggest to buy from people with 99% and above. If they sold small number of items, % number is not tellling you much. Read the feedback from other people.
See if you can find it in stock in shops.

[seguyette]

I just bought a PT-032 for my olympus through ebay. Olympus actually sells their damaged box items on ebay this way and I was able to pick mine up for $72 US, which is an amazing price. I saw it at the dive shop for $350+. I just checked for you and they don't have any PT-022's listed, but just check back because they add new items each week (I bid on a my case over a month before I finally won one under my $100 max bid). The case I got was in perfect shape and shipped really quick. I couldn't even find a scratch on the box. Anyway here is their listings eBay Store - Olympus Auctions: Digital Cameras, Voice Recorders MP3, Lens Lens Accessories Maybe you will get lucky and they will have one for you in the next few weeks.

[yiorgos]

seguyette, thanks for the post.
actually last week I checked the sites and found out that camerasunderwater.co.uk (recommended by octopus, too) have PT-022 on a special offer! Of course I ordered and it arrived yesterday... today I will do the immersion test at home without the camera. Olympus recommends to check for 3 seconds, 30 seconds and then 3 minutes. I hope the weather is ok so I can try the housing at depth...
Do any of you recommend the use of a wide angle underwater lens? My camera has ultra zoom (apparently useless in the sea) and macro (maybe helpful), but I -probably- have to buy extra wide-angle lens. Do you think its worth it?
can you also give me your opinion about the red filter?
thanks again.

[seguyette]

I have been looking at a red filter and wide angle lens also. The housing has threads on the outer side to accept lenses despite the fact that my camera itself does not, so i am having trouble finding one that will match up. If you try one out, let us know how it works and post some before and after pictures. Here are my pictures from only about 5 meters and you can already see how green things look unless i get really close and allow the flash to flood the region with light. Cheers

[octopus]

Wide angle lens is certainly plus for UW, but it can be rather expensive.
Perhaps you could try with your current setup for few months, see if you are happy with the photos and then decide.
As far as filters are concerned, I try to get maximum amount of information into the raw photo (no filtering) and then postprocess it in Photoshop if needed (filters, removal of backscatter, slight recovery of lost colouration).
Actually, that is what I would like to do, but I never find time to mess with it so I leave photos in raw format.

[seguyette]

Octopus-
I'm the same way, I end up taking out that green, loss of contrast, etc, as best as I can with photoshop if I have time or there is a picture I want perfect.
Yiorgos -
Another option is Picasa, a free program from google.com, that has a one button fix that does a decent job of taking out some of that monochromicity that water creates. If I remember I will try to pull up an example of before and after. This is a good option for people that don't want to buy any extra stuff but still want to touch up their pictures a little. (PS - it also allows simple upload of 1gb of pictures to a personal picture website for free like I linked to in my last reply).

[yiorgos]

very good idea. I didn't know you could upload your own pictures to picasa web. I will make a web space to upload underwater pics, but that may take a while, because next dive will be without camera, just the housing. As octopus said, I will experiment with this setup (without wide-angle, without red filter) for a while, and then see what I want to do... buy an external flash, or a wide-angle lens etc. The editing with the picasa is interesting. Unfortunately my camera does not support RAW, which is the best option to edit.
In one book I am reading on U/W photography, two important rules are:
1.get closer to subject and 2. shoot upwards (Edge's book). I will keep you posted re: uploading.